The present invention relates generally to automatic musical composition apparatus and methods for automatically composing a melody in accordance with various musical conditions, and more particularly to an improved automatic musical composition apparatus and method which permit creation of a melody only for a selected musical section in a music piece.
The recent proliferation or widespread use of personal computers has allowed every interested person to freely enjoy music by using computer music techniques, for example, to play a musical instrument, compose and arrange a music piece and synthesize a tone color. Particularly, in the field of musical composition using a computer, there have emerged automatic musical composition apparatus which allow even a beginner with poor musical expertise to enjoy composing a music piece in a simple manner. Known examples of the automatic musical composition apparatus include one which is designed to automatically create a melody on the basis of various input musical parameters characterizing a melody (hereinafter referred as xe2x80x9cmelody creating parametersxe2x80x9d), such as those pertaining to a musical key, musical time, pitch leap dynamics, presence/absence of syncopation and chord progression. In cases where such an automatic musical composition apparatus is employed, a user can compose various melodies freely and simply by selectively inputting melody creating parameters to the computer-based musical composition apparatus.
The conventional automatic musical composition apparatus are generally designed to automatically create a melody for an entire music piece on the basis of the input melody creating parameters. Thus, when the user does not like (or is not satisfied with) only a particular portion of the automatically-created melody and if the user again causes the automatic composing processing to be executed with a view to modifying that particular portion, the automatic musical composition apparatus would automatically re-create the melody for the entire music piece including portions of the melody that need not be changed at all. Namely, heretofore, the user was not allowed to selectively re-create or modify only a particular portion of the automatically-created melody while leaving the remaining portions of the melody unchanged to be used as they are. Therefore, the conventional automatic musical composition apparatus would provide a very poor usability to users.
In view of the foregoing prior art problems, the present invention provides an improved automatic musical composition apparatus which comprises: a processing section that automatically composes a music piece on the basis of a given musical condition; and a setting section that, for each partial musical section in a music piece, makes a setting as to whether or not music piece data should be generated for the partial musical section. Here, the processing section discriminates, in accordance with the setting made by the setting section, between a data-generating musical section where music piece data should be generated and a non-data-generating musical section where no music piece data should be generated, and generates music piece data based on the given musical condition for the data-generating musical section without generating music piece data based on the given musical condition for the non-data-generating musical section.
The setting section may make a setting, for each partial musical section in an already-composed music piece, as to whether or not music piece data should be generated for that partial musical section. Thus, music piece data for the data-generating musical section in the already-composed music piece is re-generated by the processing section, while music piece data for the non-data-generating musical section in the already-composed music piece is left unchanged. In this way, the already-composed music piece can be modified as desired. With the inventive arrangement that music piece data, such as melody data, is generated only for any designated musical section, the user can re-create only a selected partial musical section in the already-composed music piece. Namely, only a partial musical section having a melody the user does not like (or is not satisfied with) can be re-created any number of times. With this arrangement, the present invention can readily compose melodies which have a very high degree of musical completeness or perfection. Further, because the music piece data generation is inhibited for the non-data-generating section, it is possible to simultaneously generate or re-generate music piece data for two or more data-generating sections apart from each other with a particular non-data-generating section interposed therebetween, which can also contribute to an enhanced efficiency of automatic musical composition.
In one embodiment, the inventive automatic musical composition apparatus may further comprise an instruction section that instructs whether or not the setting made by the setting section should have priority over a musical composition process based on period marks. In this case, when the instruction section has instructed that the setting made by the setting section should not have the priority over the musical composition process based on the period marks, the processing section ignores the setting made by the setting section for the partial musical section within at least one of at least two periods that are indicated by the period marks as identical or similar to each other.
According to another aspect of the present invention, there is provided an automatic musical composition apparatus which comprises: a processing section that automatically composes a music piece on the basis of a given musical condition; and a setting section that, for each partial musical section in a music piece, makes a setting as to whether or not music piece data should be generated for the partial musical section. Here, the processing section is cable of performing: a first process for discriminating, in accordance with the setting made by the setting section, between a data-generating musical section where music piece data should be generated and a non-data-generating musical section where no music piece data should be generated, and generating music piece data based on the given musical condition for the data-generating musical section without generating music piece data based on the given musical condition for the non-data-generating musical section; and a second process for generating music piece data in accordance with a period mark imparted to each period constituting the music piece. The composition apparatus further comprises an instruction section that instructs the processing section to perform either one of the first and second processes with priority over other of the first and second processes. With the inventive arrangement allowing a desired one of the first and second processes to be performed with priority over the other of the first and second processes, the degree of flexibility or freedom in musical composition by the user can be greatly enhanced, with the result that the user can compose melodies having an even higher degree of musical perfection.
The present invention may be constructed and implemented not only as the apparatus invention as discussed above but also as a method invention. Also, the present invention may be arranged and implemented as a software program for execution by a processor such as a computer or DSP, as well as a storage medium storing such a program. Further, the processor used in the present invention may comprise a dedicated processor with dedicated logic built in hardware, not to mention a computer or other general-purpose type processor capable of running a desired software program.
While the embodiments to be described herein represent the preferred form of the present invention, it is to be understood that various modifications will occur to those skilled in the art without departing from the spirit of the invention. The scope of the present invention is therefore to be determined solely by the appended claims.